Proposed section 251.02 is a provision that allows for the suspension of a complaint. Again, this complaint has been made within the appropriate timelines, but there may be circumstances under which the complaint cannot be dealt with immediately. What this provides is that the inspector can suspend the complaint so that the employee can take certain measures that are deemed to be necessary.
For example, let's say that the employee has filed a complaint, but there is some ambiguity in terms of what specific standard has not been respected. Again, the inspector could ask the employee to provide more information to clarify what the measure or the problem is. Likewise, there are sometimes circumstances where an employee will file a complaint, and the first question will be, “Okay, that seems to be a problem, but have you talked to your employer yet to see whether the mistake can be corrected?” Again, sometimes the employee will say no, so we will ask them to please talk to their employer and see if it can be resolved. If it can't, then we will deal with it.
This particular measure is meant to ensure that if somebody files a complaint, we can actually hold it in abeyance so that they will not have to file a new complaint afterwards. Again, this is to make sure they respect the six-month timeline. If they file the complaint and there is a problem with the filing, we will be able to get it corrected without having to ask them to make a new complaint, potentially outside the six-month period. Again, this is meant to ensure that if they filed it in time and there are some issues, we can correct that, without this being a disadvantage to the employee.